Everyone knows how to open the task manager: press Control+Alt+Delete and click "Task Manager," right? For a faster way, press Control+Shift+Escape to launch the task manager directly, bypassing the menu and the mouse entirely.

To be fair, on Windows XP systems where the welcome screen is enabled, both shortcuts take you directly to the task manager. On any other Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 system, pressing Control+Alt+Delete will bring up a series of options, and the Task Manager is one of them.

This shortcut is a big relief if the whole reason you want to open the Task Manager is to kill a program that's hogging system resources–system resources your computer would need to display that pesky options menu. Photo by Charles Dyer.